


Purple

by Kahvi



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 03:48:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3963292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kahvi/pseuds/Kahvi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Lister finds an old love letter in the Wildfire's cockpit, he knows he shouldn't read it - who knows which Ace it belonged to, after all! Still, a little peek won't hurt anyone.... right?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Purple

**Author's Note:**

> Set just before the end of [Breaking the Chain](http://archiveofourown.org/works/504666) \- spoilers for that story and the others in [the series](http://archiveofourown.org/series/25483)!

The cockpit of the DJ-ship was eerily quiet and dull without the soothing background hum and blinking lights of the now dormant computer, which was good. It meant Lister could hear someone coming from a mile away, and slip out through the open hatch unnoticed. He very definitely was not supposed to be here.

Lister slid his hands across the smooth, probably ancient leather of the DJ ship's interior. It felt almost sensuous under his fingers, and he closed his eyes for a moment, thinking of the near-endless number of Arnold Rimmers that had sat in this very place. And how many Listers? Spanners, certainly, in many incarnations, but... He glanced out into the docking port, bottom lip sucked into his mouth. Aw, what the hell! With a burst of happy giggles, he slid himself into the pilot's seat, relishing the way it caressed his back and sides gently as his body slotted itself into place. Oh yes, he could see how you could get used to this. It was impossible to resist reaching out and touching the joystick, so Lister did so, thrilling both at the comfortable feel of the thing (which didn't half remind him of something entirely different, come to that), and…

“Shit,” he exclaimed, as the cigarette he’d kept stashed behind his ear fell down in the narrow space between the hull and the seat. “Smegging, stupid, bloody, goited thing…” He fumbled around for it, with increasing desperation. If Kris found it… Both she and Arn had specifically told him not to anywhere near the ship, and Lister did not want to get kicked out of bed – or in Kris’s case, just plain kicked in an unpleasant place. He groaned in frustration as he stretched his arm to its very limit, until finally – triumphantly – his fingers caught something papery. His smile quickly faded as he realized that the object he was holding was clearly not a cigarette. He fished it out, frowning. Arn was not the type to leave things untidy; he couldn’t have put it there.

As the object emerged, it became even clearer that this was not something Arn, or any other incarnation of Ace could possibly have discarded. It was a small, very perfumed, very purple piece of paper, folded so many times it was hard to open it up, which was, of course, the first thing Lister did.

 

_My dearest Muffy!_

_You were absolutely right about everything! It only took a little persuasion to get past daddy dearest's guards, and people are ever so helpful when you bring a little cash along to help with first impressions, I always find. That's how I managed to rent a craft without having to give my name or anything to anyone - the rental shop owner really was a very sweet man, and I'm sure I could have come up with some other arrangement if he hadn't taken the money. Oh well, I shall have another chance one day, don't you think? I do - this was ever so much fun!_ (There was a happy, smiley face drawn in the margin, with a tiny crown on its head, and the kind of slinky-toy curls that children always draw at a certain age. It made Lister rather uneasy; adults should not be drawing those!)

_I really didn’t have any trouble at all, except when they refused to grant me clearance to leave orbit without identifying myself. But I put the voice-scrambler on like you told me, and they didn’t suspect a thing! I think there really must be an awful lot of “John Smith’s” flying around the universe, don’t you? I thought they were being rather awfully silly, really, but as it was all to my advantage, that was all right. After that, of course, all I had to do was make certain the black box was damaged enough to stop anyone from finding out it was me that had driven myself out there (yes, daddy did have quite a lot of localized EMP charges in his munitions cabinet, however did you know?) and make myself up to look like I’d been beaten._

_Now, if you don’t mind me saying so, Muffykins, that part was a little harder than you made it out to be. I only barely had time to finish before he found me; the ship sent out an automatic distress-beacon the moment the EMP went off. Oh, I suppose that was the trouble; without it I would have been able to finish at my leisure, and start the signal manually afterwards. So sorry, Muffy dear, that was silly of me! The location was brilliant – thanks awfully for letting me know about it! Those shipping lanes are simply riddled with pirates and all sorts of shenanigans, so he was bound to be around there somewhere. It would have been a frightful bore to have to wait around for him. Oh, I brought rations, of course, but it really is quite dull when there’s no refrigeration or spices. Anyway, I hardly had time to tie myself up before the hatch opened, and there he was!_

_Oh, he really is quite, quite dreamy! _(The word “dreamy” was beset on all sides by a tyranny of fluffy hearts and tiny stars. Lister wrinkled his nose.) _And it really _is_ just like you said; he didn’t even look twice to check if my bruises were real. I don’t think I would have needed to bother with them at all, really, he seemed quite pre-occupied. Lot on his mind, I expect, busy space hero and all that. He picked me up and carried me in his arms – in his _arms_ , can you imagine? And quite lovely arms they were, I do agree with you Muffles, darling. I was all hot and bothered even before we were safe inside his own ship._

Lister shook his head, as if to cool it, and leaned back heavily in the seat. He was getting slightly hot and bothered himself, and not a little ashamed for it. He shouldn’t be reading this! Arn probably hadn’t, or it wouldn’t have been stuck where it was. Hell, if he’d found that some feisty girl had written down her exploits with some other Ace, and left it behind, he probably would have tossed it into the nearest sun. He didn’t much like those other Aces, no matter how many times Lister had tried to explain that they were all him, really, and reading details of their sexual conquests would not be on the top of his list of favorite pasttimes. He licked his lips, and took another furtive look out the hatch. Smeg, he had to read on! What hot-blooded man wouldn’t have? Well, Arn, for one, but he didn’t count. Lister giggled as he peeled the pages apart once more.

_He plucked me down on that little cot-thing, and it did smell rather ghastly of after-shave – why didn’t you mention that, I would have remembered to breathe through my mouth -_

Lister swallowed, and shifted slightly. Well, it was probably a common trait, for Rimmers. He wrinkled his brow, trying to remember how the first Ace he’d met had smelled like. Or the second. Hesitantly, but ever curious, he read on.

_\- and then he got this sort of look in his eyes, like he was trying to remember something, and right out of the blue he just started kissing me! Well, I wasn’t about to complain, was I Muffy sweetums? Oh, and you said his eyes were dark green, but I rather think they were hazel, don’t you know; all sort of speckled. Anyway, we had a scrumptious kiss, and then he sort of sat back and just stared at me, like he didn’t know what to do. All nonsense, of course, because I knew what you’d told me, but I played along. _

It didn’t mean anything, Lister thought, completely absorbed in the letter, forgetting everything around him; there’d been zillions of Aces, hadn’t there? Had to be a few similarities, bound to be.

_Do you want me to help you, I said, and he just sort of sat there and stared dumbly. Well, that did put me off, almost, but then he gave me this terribly feral, hungry look, and I just nearly slid off the cot, I tell you!_

_Well, I pulled his trousers down right away after that. Wouldn’t you have, dear? He still didn’t say anything though, just sort of whimpered and shook. All very odd. Now, you know me, Muffles, I can’t just take it all in. There are some girls that do, but I always gag something awful if I do that. But there’s this trick I really must show you, where you sort of suck your way along -_

Lister stared at the highly detailed description on the page in front of him. Smeg. It couldn’t be. His eyes flicked to the end of the page, turning it over, and he nearly dropped the whole flimsy bunch of sheets.

_\- And I can’t say I wasn’t a little disappointed, but that’s how these things go. Maybe he’d gone a long time without? That’s not the strangest thing though. Just as he was nearing the end – and I did trying to make him hold on, but honestly, you’d think the man had never been pleasured before, he had no clue – he called me Dave! Dave! I ask you, do I look like a Dave? And if you think that was odd, as he did finish, he yelled out something that sounded like “Geroni-_

“Dave?”

Lister’s spine jumped straight out of his back and stuck with a twang to the low ceiling of the ship as he yelped, and stuffed the letter into the front pocket of his overalls. Voice! It had been… Oh smeg, it had been a disarmingly sweet, female voice. _smeg_! Was that better or worse? He turned, very, very slowly. “Erm… Hi, Kris.”

Kochanski stood in the opening, taking the scene in, and shook her head. She was, Lister realized to his incredible relief, smiling. “Come on, get out of there. I won’t tell Arnold about it if you’ll take my cockpit shift tomorrow. She waved a wrench in a mock-menacing manner. “And don’t come in here again!”

“Wha? No. No! I was never here in the first place, was I?” Knowing he owed the universe several cargo-decks worth of karma, Lister extracted himself from the seat, and planted a kiss on Kris’s cheek as he slid past her. “Thanks,” he grinned, hitting the deck running.

As he came to the intersection which would, if he turned right and kept going, lead to his and Arn’s shared quarters, he stopped, and looked at a particular section of the wall. After a few seconds thought, he walked over to it, and flicked a switch. A small hatch opened up, smelling of disuse and dust. Into this, Lister haphazardly stuffed the purple pages, pushing some errant corners in with his index finger, slamming it shut with his elbow. This done, he watched the closed hatch for a while, a smile growing on his face.

 

Finally, he hit the “incinerate” button.


End file.
